Formal and Informal Assessment of Student Learning
Name: Lori Ann Iannotti
I. Assignment Description/Requirements
See Project Page for assignment details.
II. Preparation / Development
1. Reflect on your current assessment practices. How have you been determining what students understand and what they are able to do?
Informally I assess my students every day. Sometimes I use warm-ups at the start of class to see what students remember from the day before, and students hand these in to me before we go over them so I can assess the students individually. Every day I use questioning about what we are learning, and I try to use small group discussion so I can travel around to groups within the classroom. I have used whiteboard questions, and I have had students draw models representing phenomena like where DNA is located in the cell or drawing the difference between rotate and revolve. When I do these kinds of assessment I do my best to decide what needs to be reviewed or explained again to my students. I also use written assignments, homework assignments, quizzes and tests. Some of these assessments are formative some of them have been summative.
2. Describe the concept(s) that you are trying to assess in these assignments. Include a link to the appropriate GSE(s) on RIScienceTeachers. Be sure to include in your description your definition, examples of what it is, why students have difficulty with this concept, and why it is important that you teach this topic Informal Assessment: Link to GSE-Genetics
In this particular informal assessment, the focus is placed on genetic information from both parents being passed to the offspring.
Students collected their own data from the two original fast plant offspring, and needed to determine what the
genotypes of the parents were. Students had been working on Punnett squares and had learned and reviewed the important genetic terms for two weeks before they were expected to complete the constructed response. Students have difficulty with this topic for a variety of reasons. Although students can easily draw Punnett squares,
they have difficulty comprehending them. Students particularly have difficulty understanding that the Punnett squares represent the probability of what the
offspring genotypes might be. Students also confuse the terms phenotype and genotype even though repeatedly during discussion in class I told them
phenotype is aphysical characteristic, students can be easily confused with these words that sound so similar. It is important that students understand the basics of gentetics so students understand why they exhibit particular characteristics and where these characteristics come from.
What are some strategies that you use to help students distinguish these two concepts? - fogleman
Formal Assessment:
This formal assessment is a quarterly assessment that is used district wide. This assessment covers the information to the GSE posted above above about Genetics. The genetic information covered was included in sections 11a and 11c of the GSE. In addition this assessment also covered photosynthesis and sexual plant reproduction. Link to GSE-Photosynthesis Link to GSE-Reproduction
3. (and 7) Describe an informal assessment that you selected, modified, or designed to address this concept. Summarize the instructions you gave your students and Include a link to the informal assessment here as well.
I like this activity because it makes genetics actually happen. What did you think?- fogleman
Students cross-pollinated two purple Wisconsin fast plant parents. The results of the fertilization was seed production. Students then planted the seeds. Data was collected, and recorded as a class. Students were to answer the question, what were the genotypes of the original two Wisconsin Fast Plant parents used in cross-pollination. Students were to write their response in RACES format (restate, answer, cite, explain, and summarize)
Students knew both of the parents were purple. Students were informed that purple was dominant.
4. (and 8) Create a formal assessment. Describe this assessment, including concepts, types of items, and how it was assessed. Include a link to a copy of the assessment here as well.
6. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your informal assessment or link it here. This description should include the assessment's features, how it addresses different depths of knowledge, as well as an explanation of how it addresses a scientific practice related to inquiry Iannotti S12 Evaluation Criteria This evaluation criteria is used by all classes that do writing in Wickford Middle School.
This ensures that the writing process is assessed the same way across the different disciplines
this is extremely important in middle school.
This assessment was an great example of an assignment that required DOK levels 1,2, and 3. Students needed to be able to recall terms that we learned in the genetics unit like genotype and be able to reproduce Punnett squares in order to solve the problem. These were basic skills for the students. Before the constructive response began students needed to collect the data. This is an example of a level 2 DOK. Even though the sheet clearly spelled out to the students how to determine the percent of purple and green stems students needed to be able to interpret the data in order to solve the problem. This assignment was take a step further where the students really needed to reason to find the correct answer for the problem they were presented. Students had to think and apply their knowledge of Punnett squares and probability to solve this. This brought this assignment into the realm of a DOK 3 because the students had to provide an explanation for their answer.
7. & 8. - Already addressed above.
9. For your informal assessment, upload scans of the work of three or four students. The work of each student should be on a different page. At the bottom of each students' page, you should describe the level of student understanding, e.g. high, average, or low, and describe how this is indicated in their answers. An example of how to do this is here. Note: Remember to name the pages you create carefully, e.g. "Smith S10 - High Performing" instead of "High-Performing."
10. For you formal assessment, describe how you think it addressed the concepts you were trying to assess? How did you modify the assessment to address learning differences or special needs?
This assessment addressed the concepts that we needed to assess with several types of multiple choice problems at varying levels of Bloom's taxonomy as well as essay questions where students needed to explain themselves and showcase their writing skills. The assignment may have needed to be modified for some of the special education students. The special education teacher did remove some of the distractors from the test so the students would not be overwhelmed with the amount of choices. I also think that the students may benefit with a multiple choice practice question as a warm-up at the beginning of class. This practice of accomplishing these types of problems may really improve students test taking skills. These students really only see these multiple choice questions for NECAP and test taking. Practice would help not only the special education students but also help the regular education students that experience test anxiety.
III. Analysis / Reflection
11. Use both the informal and formal assessments to describe what you learned about what your students understand about these concepts. Use specific examples from both the informal and formal assessment to illustrate your points. What can your students do now that they could not before, and what do they still need to learn?
What I understood from both the informal and formal assessment was that even my best students manage to get confused when given the Punnett square real world problems. During class I often used real world numbers for student example. When I say real world numbers, I am talking about the fact that a Punnett square represents the likelihood of what the probability of offspring may be. Students had a difficult time understanding that a person could have four children and that all of them could be boys or girls for example. I would have done less practice regurgitating how to fill in a Punnett square and more practice working the problem in reverse. Both question 27 and the problem from the constructed response were difficult for the students. I believe these are what we really want the students to take with them. The application and explanation of these genetics assignments.
I agree. Working backward is very different for students than the way Punnett squares are typically used, but more meaningful. - fogleman
Students seem to have a good understanding of pollination, but when they were presented the problem #5 on the test many student had difficulty deciphering the sequence. This is another example that children could be helped with during the warm-up of a lesson. Students need to learn strategies when trying to decipher material so they do not become overwhelmed and just pick "C".
Students did not know the parts of the cell, but practiced drawing the cell often and completed a project on a cell of their choice. Student were great at recalling what each organelle in a cell was for, but I would have liked to have seen some higher level questioning about the cell. Maybe for example what would happen if the cell's mitochondria began to malfunction?
Again with photosynthesis students can answer recall multiple choice questions, but when presented with the questions at trhe end of the assessment students had difficulty explaining what would happen if the plants were in a drought situation. Students need to practice their writing skills more. Instead of assigning students worksheets to be filled out at home maybe short written questions could be assigned as homework and quickly self assessed at the beginning of class by the teacher giving a breakdown of a great answer to a short written answer.
Basically overall, many of the seventh graders that I taught are still concrete thinkers. These students need to begin to cross over into a world of higher level thinking, and I believe that the teacher needs to create more opportunities to practice these type of skills.
Interesting observation. What, as a teacher, would you do to facilitate this? - fogleman
12. OMIT
13. For your formal assessment only, select one student characteristic, e.g. ability, gender, age, etc) and compare the relative performance of each group. Hint: Use box and whiskers plots to compare the two groups. What do you conclude from this comparison? Why?
The formal assessment had a range of scores from 32-104. The mean score was an 88. The median score was a 91, and the mode was a 100 with four students getting a 100 on the assessment. I compared the girls (17 students ) with the boys (19 students). The median score for the females was an 85, and the median score for the males was a 90. The upper quartile for the females is at 100, and the upper quartile for the males is at 97. The lower quartile for the females is at 74, and the lower quartile for the males was at 81.The range for the females was from 32-104, and the range for the males is from 71-99. When looking t the box and whisker plot you can see that the males score was a smaller cluster than the females. The two lowest scores in the class were in the female cluster with a 32 and a 50. If these were eliminated you would see a much higher median for the females than with the males. The female upper quartile was either a perfect score or better than perfect, where the male cluster highest score was a 99. Overall if you were to drop both of the extra low score you would see that there is not that much of a difference between the two groups, but the females would have slightly outperformed the males if the two low scores were eliminated.
14. Describe any ways in which you involved students in self-assessment. How did you communicate what you learned from your informal and formal assessments to your students? What did they do with this information?
Students were involved in self assessment by reviewing their homework, but I found may time ?? students were checked out when they were reviewing homework assignment often needing encouragement from the teacher. All of the assignments that were done in class were always reviewed with the students. After tests and constructed responses were handed back, I spent a bit of time reviewing the concepts that were the most difficult with students. I would let the know if students know how many people got each question wrong to bring to their attention what they were good at as a class and on what questions students needed work. If a large number of students got something wrong I would take the time to show the problems on the overhead and explain where I think students went wrong. I also kept track of the most popular wrong answers so when I reviewed test items I could explain why the popular distractor was incorrect.
Is "going over" assessments sufficient based on your experience so far? What would a teacher have to do to make this process more meaningful to students? - fogleman
Before assessments I tried to use warm-ups in class that would help the students to communicate things that I felt they were having difficulty with or I would just use warm-ups to look at quickly to see who was following me and who was not. Many students would use the information reviewed to correct themselves for the future, but other students did not pay attention and would often make the same mistakes. Any additional ideas here would be appreciated.
15: Most Important: Compare your objectives for student learning (both in terms of science concepts and practices) to the student learning you observed. What did you learn about your teaching based on the student performances? What will you do differently next time? Why would you make these changes? What, if anything, will you do to improve the assessment instruments?
Next time I will take into consideration what I have learned about 7th grade students and where they have problems. As I have previously mentioned I will try to do more application and explanation problems for homework and warm-ups so students wil have more opportunity to practice their skills prior to test taking. If we are going to spend more time on these higher-level explanation and application of the concepts of genetics, photosynthesis and plant reproduction then the assessment will need to reflect that. I feel that the objectives were met for most of the students, but that I would like to see a higher percentage of students do well on the higher level thinking aspect of the concepts. Overall I also feel that the assessment may not have been a true representative of the student knowledge because many of the question were based on vocabulary and recall. I would like to see the students really thinking and learning about scientific concepts.
How would you prepare your students for your more ambitious assessment goals? - fogleman
22/24. Nice description of assessment strategies and your writing rubric is useful. By focusing on mechanical aspects of students' writing, you may be underplaying students' understandings of genetics. What do you think? - fogleman
Name: Lori Ann Iannotti
I. Assignment Description/Requirements
II. Preparation / Development
1. Reflect on your current assessment practices. How have you been determining what students understand and what they are able to do?
Informally I assess my students every day. Sometimes I use warm-ups at the start of class to see what students remember from the day before, and students hand these in to me before we go over them so I can assess the students individually. Every day I use questioning about what we are learning, and I try to use small group discussion so I can travel around to groups within the classroom. I have used whiteboard questions, and I have had students draw models representing phenomena like where DNA is located in the cell or drawing the difference between rotate and revolve. When I do these kinds of assessment I do my best to decide what needs to be reviewed or explained again to my students. I also use written assignments, homework assignments, quizzes and tests. Some of these assessments are formative some of them have been summative.
Excellent strategies. -
2. Describe the concept(s) that you are trying to assess in these assignments. Include a link to the appropriate GSE(s) on RIScienceTeachers. Be sure to include in your description your definition, examples of what it is, why students have difficulty with this concept, and why it is important that you teach this topic
Informal Assessment:
Link to GSE-Genetics
In this particular informal assessment, the focus is placed on genetic information from both parents being passed to the offspring.
Students collected their own data from the two original fast plant offspring, and needed to determine what the
genotypes of the parents were. Students had been working on Punnett squares and had learned and reviewed the important genetic terms for two weeks before they were expected to complete the constructed response. Students have difficulty with this topic for a variety of reasons. Although students can easily draw Punnett squares,
they have difficulty comprehending them. Students particularly have difficulty understanding that the Punnett squares represent the probability of what the
offspring genotypes might be. Students also confuse the terms phenotype and genotype even though repeatedly during discussion in class I told them
phenotype is a physical characteristic, students can be easily confused with these words that sound so similar. It is important that students understand the basics of gentetics so students understand why they exhibit particular characteristics and where these characteristics come from.
What are some strategies that you use to help students distinguish these two concepts? -
Formal Assessment:
This formal assessment is a quarterly assessment that is used district wide. This assessment covers the information to the GSE posted above above about Genetics. The genetic information covered was included in sections 11a and 11c of the GSE. In addition this assessment also covered photosynthesis and sexual plant reproduction.
Link to GSE-Photosynthesis
Link to GSE-Reproduction
3. (and 7) Describe an informal assessment that you selected, modified, or designed to address this concept. Summarize the instructions you gave your students and Include a link to the informal assessment here as well.
I like this activity because it makes genetics actually happen. What did you think?-
Students cross-pollinated two purple Wisconsin fast plant parents. The results of the fertilization was seed production. Students then planted the seeds. Data was collected, and recorded as a class. Students were to answer the question, what were the genotypes of the original two Wisconsin Fast Plant parents used in cross-pollination. Students were to write their response in RACES format (restate, answer, cite, explain, and summarize)
Students knew both of the parents were purple. Students were informed that purple was dominant.
4. (and 8) Create a formal assessment. Describe this assessment, including concepts, types of items, and how it was assessed. Include a link to a copy of the assessment here as well.
Link to Formal Assessment
5. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your formal assessment or link it here.
Link to Iannotti S12 Formal Assessment Key
Missing? -
6. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your informal assessment or link it here. This description should include the assessment's features, how it addresses different depths of knowledge, as well as an explanation of how it addresses a scientific practice related to inquiry
Iannotti S12 Evaluation Criteria This evaluation criteria is used by all classes that do writing in Wickford Middle School.
This ensures that the writing process is assessed the same way across the different disciplines
this is extremely important in middle school.
This assessment was an great example of an assignment that required DOK levels 1,2, and 3. Students needed to be able to recall terms that we learned in the genetics unit like genotype and be able to reproduce Punnett squares in order to solve the problem. These were basic skills for the students. Before the constructive response began students needed to collect the data. This is an example of a level 2 DOK. Even though the sheet clearly spelled out to the students how to determine the percent of purple and green stems students needed to be able to interpret the data in order to solve the problem. This assignment was take a step further where the students really needed to reason to find the correct answer for the problem they were presented. Students had to think and apply their knowledge of Punnett squares and probability to solve this. This brought this assignment into the realm of a DOK 3 because the students had to provide an explanation for their answer.
7. & 8. - Already addressed above.
9. For your informal assessment, upload scans of the work of three or four students. The work of each student should be on a different page. At the bottom of each students' page, you should describe the level of student understanding, e.g. high, average, or low, and describe how this is indicated in their answers. An example of how to do this is here. Note: Remember to name the pages you create carefully, e.g. "Smith S10 - High Performing" instead of "High-Performing."
Iannotti S12 High-understanding
Did you mean to include your boxplots at the end of this page instead of your rubric? -
Iannotti S12 Average-understanding
Except for the final score, how did you determine the students' level of understanding? -
Iannotti S12 Low-understanding
10. For you formal assessment, describe how you think it addressed the concepts you were trying to assess? How did you modify the assessment to address learning differences or special needs?
This assessment addressed the concepts that we needed to assess with several types of multiple choice problems at varying levels of Bloom's taxonomy as well as essay questions where students needed to explain themselves and showcase their writing skills. The assignment may have needed to be modified for some of the special education students. The special education teacher did remove some of the distractors from the test so the students would not be overwhelmed with the amount of choices. I also think that the students may benefit with a multiple choice practice question as a warm-up at the beginning of class. This practice of accomplishing these types of problems may really improve students test taking skills. These students really only see these multiple choice questions for NECAP and test taking. Practice would help not only the special education students but also help the regular education students that experience test anxiety.
III. Analysis / Reflection
11. Use both the informal and formal assessments to describe what you learned about what your students understand about these concepts. Use specific examples from both the informal and formal assessment to illustrate your points. What can your students do now that they could not before, and what do they still need to learn?
What I understood from both the informal and formal assessment was that even my best students manage to get confused when given the Punnett square real world problems. During class I often used real world numbers for student example. When I say real world numbers, I am talking about the fact that a Punnett square represents the likelihood of what the probability of offspring may be. Students had a difficult time understanding that a person could have four children and that all of them could be boys or girls for example. I would have done less practice regurgitating how to fill in a Punnett square and more practice working the problem in reverse. Both question 27 and the problem from the constructed response were difficult for the students. I believe these are what we really want the students to take with them. The application and explanation of these genetics assignments.
I agree. Working backward is very different for students than the way Punnett squares are typically used, but more meaningful. -
Students seem to have a good understanding of pollination, but when they were presented the problem #5 on the test many student had difficulty deciphering the sequence. This is another example that children could be helped with during the warm-up of a lesson. Students need to learn strategies when trying to decipher material so they do not become overwhelmed and just pick "C".
Students did not know the parts of the cell, but practiced drawing the cell often and completed a project on a cell of their choice. Student were great at recalling what each organelle in a cell was for, but I would have liked to have seen some higher level questioning about the cell. Maybe for example what would happen if the cell's mitochondria began to malfunction?
Again with photosynthesis students can answer recall multiple choice questions, but when presented with the questions at trhe end of the assessment students had difficulty explaining what would happen if the plants were in a drought situation. Students need to practice their writing skills more. Instead of assigning students worksheets to be filled out at home maybe short written questions could be assigned as homework and quickly self assessed at the beginning of class by the teacher giving a breakdown of a great answer to a short written answer.
Basically overall, many of the seventh graders that I taught are still concrete thinkers. These students need to begin to cross over into a world of higher level thinking, and I believe that the teacher needs to create more opportunities to practice these type of skills.
Interesting observation. What, as a teacher, would you do to facilitate this? -
12. OMIT
13. For your formal assessment only, select one student characteristic, e.g. ability, gender, age, etc) and compare the relative performance of each group. Hint: Use box and whiskers plots to compare the two groups. What do you conclude from this comparison? Why?
The formal assessment had a range of scores from 32-104. The mean score was an 88. The median score was a 91, and the mode was a 100 with four students getting a 100 on the assessment. I compared the girls (17 students ) with the boys (19 students). The median score for the females was an 85, and the median score for the males was a 90. The upper quartile for the females is at 100, and the upper quartile for the males is at 97. The lower quartile for the females is at 74, and the lower quartile for the males was at 81.The range for the females was from 32-104, and the range for the males is from 71-99. When looking t the box and whisker plot you can see that the males score was a smaller cluster than the females. The two lowest scores in the class were in the female cluster with a 32 and a 50. If these were eliminated you would see a much higher median for the females than with the males. The female upper quartile was either a perfect score or better than perfect, where the male cluster highest score was a 99. Overall if you were to drop both of the extra low score you would see that there is not that much of a difference between the two groups, but the females would have slightly outperformed the males if the two low scores were eliminated.
Link to Box and Whisker Plot
14. Describe any ways in which you involved students in self-assessment. How did you communicate what you learned from your informal and formal assessments to your students? What did they do with this information?
Students were involved in self assessment by reviewing their homework, but I found may time ?? students were checked out when they were reviewing homework assignment often needing encouragement from the teacher. All of the assignments that were done in class were always reviewed with the students. After tests and constructed responses were handed back, I spent a bit of time reviewing the concepts that were the most difficult with students. I would let the know if students know how many people got each question wrong to bring to their attention what they were good at as a class and on what questions students needed work. If a large number of students got something wrong I would take the time to show the problems on the overhead and explain where I think students went wrong. I also kept track of the most popular wrong answers so when I reviewed test items I could explain why the popular distractor was incorrect.
Is "going over" assessments sufficient based on your experience so far? What would a teacher have to do to make this process more meaningful to students? -
Before assessments I tried to use warm-ups in class that would help the students to communicate things that I felt they were having difficulty with or I would just use warm-ups to look at quickly to see who was following me and who was not. Many students would use the information reviewed to correct themselves for the future, but other students did not pay attention and would often make the same mistakes. Any additional ideas here would be appreciated.
15: Most Important: Compare your objectives for student learning (both in terms of science concepts and practices) to the student learning you observed. What did you learn about your teaching based on the student performances? What will you do differently next time? Why would you make these changes? What, if anything, will you do to improve the assessment instruments?
Next time I will take into consideration what I have learned about 7th grade students and where they have problems. As I have previously mentioned I will try to do more application and explanation problems for homework and warm-ups so students wil have more opportunity to practice their skills prior to test taking. If we are going to spend more time on these higher-level explanation and application of the concepts of genetics, photosynthesis and plant reproduction then the assessment will need to reflect that. I feel that the objectives were met for most of the students, but that I would like to see a higher percentage of students do well on the higher level thinking aspect of the concepts. Overall I also feel that the assessment may not have been a true representative of the student knowledge because many of the question were based on vocabulary and recall. I would like to see the students really thinking and learning about scientific concepts.
How would you prepare your students for your more ambitious assessment goals? -
22/24. Nice description of assessment strategies and your writing rubric is useful. By focusing on mechanical aspects of students' writing, you may be underplaying students' understandings of genetics. What do you think? -